Page 34 of Pregnant Virgin of the Bratva

I’m exhausted.

My body is bruised, inside and out. My thighs ache. My skin still tingles in the places he touched—mouth, hands, teeth. Every inch of me feels claimed. Possessed. I should be angry. I should be terrified. I should be screaming into the pillow.

Instead, my eyes start to close.

I tell myself it’s only survival. That sleep is the only escape left to me. That I’m too tired to fight anymore, but it’s more than that. My breathing slows as his thumb strokes once more across the ridge of my hip.

I don’t even want to move.

Sleep takes me before I can deny it.

Chapter Ten - Kion

Her lips are parted, her throat still marked by my mouth—a reminder for her, and a warning for everyone else. I leave evidence. I want it seen. I want every last bastard in this house to know exactly who she belongs to.

I sit in the armchair near the foot of the bed.

My elbows rest on my knees. My fingers are laced, knuckles pressing against my chin. I haven’t moved in a while. I haven’t spoken. I don’t need to, not now.

She lies on her side, legs drawn in, one arm tucked under her head, the other folded across her chest. Like she’s guarding herself even in sleep. Her lashes cast faint shadows on her cheeks. Her lips are slightly parted. There’s a smear of color on her throat from my mouth—faint, but mine. Still, she looks untouched. Fragile, in a way she never once acted. Even after everything I’ve done to her. Even after tonight.

That unsettles me.

She should be shattered. Furious. Hollowed out. Even now, in sleep, there’s something in her that refuses to break.

It stirs something sharp inside me. Something I thought I’d buried long ago.

Possession.

Primal instinct.

She was soft beneath me, yes—but never limp. She didn’t cry when I pushed her past what she could take. She didn’t beg. She didn’t plead. She met my eyes. She burned under me. She stayed with me.

I didn’t expect that.

I’ve had women before. Plenty. Willing ones, eager ones. The kind who learned to please, who knew the rules before I ever gave them. Esme is different.

She doesn’t know the rules. She keeps trying to rewrite them.

Her fear is real, but so is her defiance. Her curiosity. That quiet little spark she tries to hide.

The Bratva would call it weakness. Let them. If they want to test me, they can try—for all their talk, none of them have the balls. I do what I want, take what I want, and they know better than to get in my way.

***

By dawn, I still haven’t slept.

The room is dim, her breathing the only sound that’s managed to keep me still for this long. I watch the way her fingers twitch in sleep, the soft pull of a frown that lingers even in rest. She dreams like someone braced for pain. Even here, even now, some part of her refuses to let go.

When the sun starts to rise, I stand.

I move through the house without sound, past the guards posted in the hall, through the long stretch of corridors leading to my office. The room smells like leather and old smoke. I leave the door open behind me.

Then I call Yuri.

He answers on the second ring. “You alive?”

“I need a courier. Someone I don’t have to babysit.”